Instantly
by kkuka
Summary: Quinn and Puck decide to keep Beth... but those happy moments and feelings can only last so long...   Loosely based on my personal experiences. I don't own a thing. & my apologies. It may be hard to understand.. I'm so new to this fanfiction thing.


**Instantly**

In an instant, their lives were changed forever. They had a daughter, they were parents. She was a mother, he was a father and she… well, she was perfect. Her green eyes like Quinn's and nose like Puck's. Her tiny eyelids fluttered open and shut as she laid squealing and gurgling in Quinn's arms at the hospital. Puck stroked the slight bit of hair atop their daughters head.

He looked up at Quinn. Her eyes were smiling as she laughed with joy at this miracle in her arms. Puck smiled, knowing Queen Fabray, Ice Queen, was melting, but in a good way.

"What should we name her?" Puck asked.

"I thought we already discussed this," she replied smiling.

"Right. Welcome to the world, Beth Fabray-Puckerman."

"It's so perfect." She started to cry. "I love her so much, Puck."

"Me too, Q."

*Eleven Years Later*

"Hello?" Puck answered the phone. It was two o'clock A.M and Quinn wasn't in bed. She had gone out to pick Beth from a birthday party on acreage just outside of Lima while Puck drifted off to sleep.

"Is this Noah Puckerman?" A man on the other line asked.

Immediately Puck's heart sank. His eyes began to water and his stomach began to twist and knot inside of him.

"Yes." His voice cracked.

"There's been an accident. My name is Officer Charles. Your wife is at the hospital here in Lima. You should get down he-"

Before the the officer could say anything else, Puck had hung up the phone as was making his way to the car. He drove down the street quickly, eyes full of tears, heart racing faster than anything you could imagine. He wanted everything to be alright. He wanted this to be a dream. He _needed _this to be a dream. No, this couldn't be a dream. This had to be a nightmare.

He arrived at the hospital in disarray. The doctors and nurses tried to calm him down and tell him what had happened but Puck didn't care what happened. The only this he cared about was if Quinn and Beth were alright. But the nurses wouldn't tell him that…

Automatically Puck expected the worst. He sat on a couch in the waiting room, surrounded by doctors and nurses. He started to calm down. His eyes were no longer waterfalls, but trickling faucets.

The nurse called Officer Charles into the waiting room. He sat next to Puck and put his hand on his shoulder. He explained that it began to rain fairly hard at about eleven o'clock as they were driving home. They began to hydroplane along a slick patch of concrete and spun horizontally on the interstate. An oncoming van hit the passenger's side of the vehicle.

Puck began to cry uncontrollably again. And Puck _never_ cries.

"Where's my family?" he demanded.

"Well..." the officer hesitated.

"Where are they?" Puck raised his voice. He felt angry and upset and exhausted. He felt a tornado of emotions. His mind was spinning out of control.

"Your wife is in surgery right now. There seems to be some pressure on her brain and her pupils aren't dilating properly. They are trying to relieve the pressure right now," the nurse assured Puck.

"And what about my daughter?" Puck tried to stay as calm as possible.

"Paramedics declared her DOA."

Instantly his life was changed. He no longer had a daughter. He was no longer a father.

Puck screamed. He fell to his knees. After all Quinn and himself had been through he thought they might get the happy ending that they deserved. This just wasn't fair. And then all he could do was cry, even though he knew crying wouldn't bring his beautiful little girl back. But hey, crying never hurt anyone.

Twenty minutes passed, then thirty, then an hour and then another. Puck just sat in the waiting room by himself. He couldn't call anyone; he wouldn't be able to get the words "Beth is dead" out of his mouth. He could barely hear them in his head, never mind out loud. He began to feel so helpless and alone. He was worried sick about Quinn but not a single fucking nurse would come out and tell him what was going on. What the hell else was going on in an emergency room in Lima? A kid with a cough? A whore with an STD? And nobody thought a fatal car accident was more important.

Finally, Finn and Rachel came rushing through the hospital doors and ran to the front desk, asking for Puck. A nurse pointed them in the direction of the waiting room.

Puck looked up and saw his friends. He looked like a disaster. His eyes were swollen and red, his skin was as white as a ghosts. But Rachel and Finn didn't comment, they just hugged him. Rachel was bawling like a two year old and Finn looked sick. But nobody cared what they looked like. They just lost an eleven year old daughter and God daughter.

"She was only eleven years old, you guys. I only had eleven years with my beautiful little girl and now she's just gone. I'll never.." Puck paused for a moment. Tears began to fall again. "I'll never see her smiling face again. Her.. big hazel eyes.. they're.. just.." He couldn't speak. He felt like a jigsaw puzzle and all of his pieces were thrown across the room like cards in game of fifty two pick up, but instead of someone falling for the trick and cleaning the pieces up, they left them there scattered on the floor to collect dust.

"I know, man. I know…"Finn hugged is best friend. They had been friends since they were young and he had never seen Puck so broken before.

Rachel and Finn took a seat beside Puck and waited… and waited… and waited. All they could do was wait and Puck was losing it as the minutes passed. Couldn't this day just be over?

Then a surgeon and two other nurses walked into the room. Puck stood up, along with Finn and Rachel. Puck was shaking. His legs looked weak and fragile. His eyes looked sick and exhausted and his skin looked stressed.

"Noah Puckerman?" the surgeon called. Puck took a small step forward. "Hello Mr. Puckerman. Quinn just underwent a dangerous brain surgery. As you may already know, those are extensive, long procedures and do not always go the way we want them to… but Quinn did just fine. She's a fighter, I can tell. As of right now, she is in a comatose state. We don't know how long she will be in it. It could be hours, days, or months. And when she does wake up, we don't know how much she will remember, if she'll still have her fine and gross motor skills, or if she can even speak. Some people never fully recover, some recover to a certain point, and some recover with no problems. But each take a lot of time. She's in recovery right now, but you can go in and see her in about an hour."

Puck let out a sigh of relief. At least I still have her, he thought to himself. But he slumped himself back on the couch and waited another hour so he could go see her. And when he walked in, everything felt real.

There was Quinn, limp and motionless, lying on a hospital bed. She looked sore and uncomfortable and sick as he looked at her through the thick glass. It didn't look like her and all Puck wanted to do was make her feel better, to fluff her pillow and massage her shoulders. He wanted to take all her pain away but he couldn't touch her. He had to wear a mask over his mouth and rubber gloves. Her wounds were just too new to be messed around with and an infection could cause major problems. This is not how Puck wanted to remember Quinn as for the rest of his life. He hoped he'd never see her like this. He hoped he'd never see _anyone _like this. _Ever. _

He wiped a tear off his cheek and pushed his hands up against the glass window separating him from his wife. He wanted to go in there and pick her up and shake her awake. He tried telling himself that she was just sleeping, or that she had a bad reaction to something she was allergic to or maybe she just had her tonsils out. But he couldn't push the thought that she could die any second out of his head. He wanted to so bad, but he just couldn't. And nothing hurt him more than seeing her like that. He wanted to scream. He wanted to yell. He wanted to know why something like that could ever happen to somebody like him. How after everything he and Quinn had been through, this stupid mess could still occur. Fuck life.

*3 Months Later*

Puck walked into the same hospital room with his guitar in hand. He sat in the same spot he did every time he came in. He managed to nestle himself in between feeding tubes and cords and antibiotics and monitors, and into a chair he brought in from home. He began to strum his guitar to the tune of "Beth" softly. Then he began to hum but he couldn't anymore. It brought back to any memories, too much pain. He began to cry. He hadn't cried since Beth's funeral.

But a funeral for an eleven year old girl would be hard. It was a beautiful service no matter how ironic or sadistic it sounds. There were flowers strung and thrown in every direction. There were white lilies, Beth's favourites and Quinn's too, among the many. The music was soft and sweet, like Beth, and Rachel and Finn sang "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away" by Justin Moore. And Puck cried. The worst part though, was the casket at the front. He couldn't stand to see his daughter, pale faced and purple liped, laying in a frickin' wooden box at the age of eleven. _ELEVEN._So, he asked for a closed casket service. He had his time with her, though. The viewing before-hand was excruciating. Her small arms were crossed over her heart with a picture of their family placed underneath them. Strewn around her were several pictures of Quinn and her playing in the backyard or her and Puck on their father-daughter fishing trips, medals from dance competitions and her first teddy bear. She was dressed in her favourite white dress and had a red rose tucked gingerly behind her ear. She`s beautiful, Puck thought to himself while at the viewing. My little girl is beautiful, he kept saying over and over and over until he broke down.

"Do you hear that, my little angel? You're such a beautiful little girl!" he cried into the coffin. "You're the most gorgeous little angel, Beth. You're perfect." He screamed. He couldn't handle it. "I love you, my angel. I love you, I love you, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you." Oh how he wished he could've plucked her up and took her home as if she had just fallen asleep…

And then he heard a "beep beep beep" and he was back in that hospital room. And he began to strum his guitar to a tune he knew quite well. Puck was never a really big country music fan, but this song struck home, and Quinn had always loved it. And so he sang to her…

_If I was a super hero, baby I would save you from the world outside, the world outside your door. And I could fly faster than the speed of light to you. And I could be there when you needed me to hold you through the night. But I'm just a man, in love with a girl. No suit of armour just lay your head down on this heart of mine. I'm just a man, who wants to give you the world. So I'm going to love you, the best that I can. I would step inside your mind to see what's behind those eyes, take a look at what you're dreaming of, dreaming of tonight. And I can see the future girl; it's you and me, that's right. And all the things you've wished upon, you've wished for all your life. But I'm just a man, in love with a girl. No suit of armour just lay your head down on this heart of mine. I'm just a man, who wants to give you the world. So I'm going to love you, the best that I can…_

He grabbed onto her hand and squeezed it. "If I was a super hero, baby I would save you from the world outside…" He repeated and began to cry. He got out of his chair and sat on the edge of her bed.

He looked at her, stroked her hair and whispered in her ear, "Please wake up, Q. Please. I can't do this without you. I need you, you're my rock. I love you and only you. Not even this will come between us. I just miss you, Quinn. I miss you."

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees her open her eyes. After three months of waiting and crying and missing his best friend, Quinn Fabray-Puckerman opened her eyes. It was just the smallest sign that she might be okay, that she might recover.

Puck called the nurse into the room. He examined her, took some tests and left the room. Quinn didn't move though. She didn't speak or twitch. She just laid there with her eyes open, staring into space.

The doctor came back in the room and told Puck that her opening her eyes was a step in the right direction, but she still had a very long road to full recovery ahead of her. She couldn't communicate, speak or move around. She just laid there, eyes open, staring into space. Who knew if she could even see.

In Pucks mind though, any step in any direction was good enough for him. Any progress was what he wanted and after three months, that's just what he got. After visiting hours were over, he headed home with a smile on his face, hoping that something good might come out of this after all.

*7 months later*

Puck walked into Quinn's room. It was just another day. Wake up, shower, head to the hospital, go home.

Routine.

He found a nurse in her room this time. She was fixing Quinn's tracheotomy tube when she noticed Puck walk in.

"Well hello Noah," The nurse greeted.

"Good morning," he replied.

"I think Quinn wants to show you what she learned yesterday while you were out," she looked at Quinn. Her lips creased into a small smile.

The nurse instructed Quinn to hold up her right arm. She did successfully. Next, the nurse asked Quinn if she liked flowers. Quinn gave the nurse a 'thumbs up'. Lastly, the nurse told Quinn to hug Puck. She motioned for Puck to go over to her bedside. Slowly but surely, Quinn lifted both arms slightly and wrapped them around Puck's neck, very gently. Puck hugged back.

The nurse smiled, helped Quinn lay back down and then left the room. Quinn was still smiling. She must've known how proud Puck was. It had been a while since Puck saw that smile he loved so much. He missed it. He missed her.

"I'm so proud of my girl," he whispered in her ear. "You're my fighter, you know that? I love you so much."

He wished, however, that Quinn could speak to him again. He wished that she could sing with him again, like they did before Beth was born. They'd spend so much time singing to their daughter and he missed it.

_"Beth I hear you calling, but I hope you'll be alright. 'Cause me and the boys will be playing all night…" _Puck sang as he strummed. "What about Beth?" he insisted.

"Beth?" Quinn replied.

"Yeah. I like that name."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Why? You don't like it?"

"No, I love it. I just thought, well, it wasn't a name I thought you'd suggest, or even think of."

"Are you kidding me? KISS is such an epic band. Any song title of theirs is an appropriate baby name."

"So you're saying _Shout It Out Loud_ is a reasonable name for a baby girl?" Quinn giggled.

"Well… no…"

"Well…"

"Okay Quinn. Shut up. You've proved me wrong. But that doesn't leave this room. Puckasaurus doesn't want that mushy reputation… You know, discussing baby names and all that…"

"Okay, okay. I won't tell a soul..." Quinn laughed again.

Those were the best days, Puck thought. He missed them so much. He'd give anything to get them back.

*1 Year Later*

Puck moved his last box out of his house and onto the moving truck. He looked back at the house he and Quinn had bought together during their senior year. He had so many memories he didn't want to leave behind there. Beth grew up there, and after all, it was his very first home of his own. But Puck had to make a new start and move on. He was going to miss it, that's for certain, but moving meant being closer to Quinn. He wouldn't have to dwell on the bad memories lurking within the walls.

He took one last look, turned his back and got into the truck. They started driving and he never looked back. Maybe starting over will be a good thing, he thought. Maybe…

But as he was driving, he kept reminiscing over all the good time they had together. All three of them. They celebrated Beth's first birthday in that house…

All of their friends were there, Finn, Rachel, Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Brittany, Santana and everyone else. Beth loved all the attention. The cake was lovely and held one candle right in the middle. Puck strummed to the tune of "Happy Birthday" and Quinn and the rest of the group sang along. Beth squealed with excitement as Quinn helped her to blow out the candle. Mercedes insisted on getting a family picture taken. So, the three of them gathered around the table, smiles on their faces as the camera flashed…

Puck held the picture in his hands as he drove down the road, occasionally looking at it. But, it reminded him of Beth and it hurt. It hurt him so badly. But if I didn't remember, he thought, what kind of father would I be? I can't just forget about my only daughter. I just can't.

Moving on and forgetting are two different things, he thought. But what was moving on exactly…

He drove down several roads in his neighbourhood before he reached his new street, which was located near the home where Quinn was moved a few months earlier. She was recovering quickly and the nurses at the hospital couldn't handle it anymore. This was a plus for Puck. His wife was getting better and better as the days went on and the home was located near some condo's which would be nicer for someone who is living alone to be owning.

Puck arrived at his new home and turned the doorknob. This is my new home, he thought. This is where new memories would have to be made. And as he took a step in, he could feel something good. He felt something heart warming, indescribable. He knew from that moment on that something good would come from this tangled mess, this disaster, this maybe-miracle in disguise.

*1 Year and 10 months later*

Puck's phone rang at one o'clock in the morning. Curious as to who would be calling him in the wee hours, he picked it up.

"Hello? Noah?" a voice broke through the line.

"Yes,this is Noah."

"You should come down to the home now."

"Why? What's going on?" Puck began to worry.

"Just come," the woman on the other line instructed.

Puck put on a hoodie and a dirty pair of jeans lying on this floor, grabbed his keys and left his condo. He drove the eight blocks to the home, which felt like an eternity to him. He ran in the main entrance and down the maze of halls to Quinn's room. He walked in very cavalier and saw several nurses surrounding the bed where Quinn was laying.

"What's going on?" Puck demanded.

The nurses backed away from the bed and let Puck see for himself.

"Puck…" a wimper came from the bed.

Instantly, his life was changed...again.

"Quinn. Oh my God, Quinn," Puck began to cry.

The nurses left the room to allow Puck time with Quinn, time that was well deserved.

"Quinn, I missed you, I love you. I love you so fricken much," Puck kissed her forehead over and over again.

"I love you, Puck," she said weakly.

"Do you need anything? Water, a pillow? Anything?"

"No. Where's Beth?"

"Quinn…"

"Puck, where's Beth," she repeated. She sounded exhausted and sick.

"Quinn, Beth isn't... Beth won't. Beth died, Q. Our baby is gone, Q. She's gone." Puck began to cry.

"No…" Quinn cried softly. Tears poured down her cheeks. She was exhausted, then emotionally drained.

"I know, Q. I know…" they both continued to cry.

"I killed out daughter…" Quinn cried.

"Quinn, you did not. Don't ever say that. It was all an accident. One big stupid fucking car accident. You didn't kill our daughter. It was her time to go, Q. It was just her time…"

"How long has it been?"

"Almost two years."

"I've lost two years of my life?"

"Q, it'll be okay. You need to rest again. Please rest again. I can't handle losing you too. I'll be right here when you wake up. I love you so much, Quinn Lucy Fabray. I'll love you forever, you know that right? Ever since I first laid eyes on you, I loved you."

'I love you too, Noah Sawyer Puckerman," she said, still crying.

And Puck stroked her hair until she fell asleep.

*3 and a half years later*

Quinn and Puck were finally settling into their home together. Quinn had been released from the home after two years of rehabilitation once she proved she could do anything any other able person could do including walking, talking, writing, reading, eating, and so on. Although she still needed a lot of help from Puck to do a lot of things, Quinn was beyond glad to be able to get out of that place after being there for so long. Living in her own home again was something she looked forward to since she woke up. Although she missed her old home, she decided that it was for the good of both herself and Puck that they moved out and moved on.

And so together they lived. With their struggles and obstacles came good times and tools to destroy the obstacles. With tears and heartbreak came smiles, laughter and unconditional love. And among all of that, was the memory of their daughter safely kept deep in their hearts, under lock and key.

And as they grew older, they began to understand the meaning of moving on. It didn't mean forgetting or ignoring or avoiding. Moving on meant remembering. Moving on takes courage and bravery and skill. Quinn and Puck had just that. Throughout their lives they had been through suffering, mourning and pain. It takes someone strong to get through the struggles in life. But to move on, it takes someone extraordinary. Moving on means learning to live again…


End file.
